Happy New Year!

Well, it's the New Year. In the past few years I have always had some very quiet New Years Celebrations. Usually I fall asleep before midnight and don't even notice that the new year has come until I wake up in the morning. This was not one of those years.
It's currently 6:50am, I'm at the Santiago airport waiting for my fellow students to arrive at the airport starting at 9:00am.
I shared a cab ride in with two nurses from Tasmania, Australia who have been traveling for seven months around the world together, only spending a total of two hours apart. They are leaving for Peru this morning. They have spent so much time together, or maybe they have always done this, that they finish each others sentences and talk in a type of shorthand where entire concepts are conveyed between them with a OOOH, YA! And, they rarely are quiet, I'm going to miss them.
As I run my hand through my hair I have confetti fall out of it onto the floor. I think I might be finding that confetti falling out of things for a number of weeks to come.
When I finished the last entry I had spent the entire day walking around some large hill garden area on the outskirts of Santiago. There is a lot I'd like to mention, but I sadly don't have enough time or energy to write it all. Nor do I think you really care. However, I will tell you that we adopted one of the city dogs on the trip. He was a happy dog, and I realize why. Every time we stopped at a water stand or place where people were, someone would reach into a side bag or backpack and pull out a handful of dog food for our perro. I had at first thought that only some random crazy people were feeding the dogs, now I know it's a common thing to do! Anyway, I liked that dog, even though I didn't want to touch him for fear of catching something.


Anyway, back to where I left off at the hostel. The hostel had decided to put on a free New Years dinner for all the guest, and I think everyone showed up. The nationalities that showed themselves were Brazilian, Uruguay, Swiss, American (me only), Welsh, Irish, Australian, Argentinian, Dutch and probably a couple that I missed. Dinner consisted of potato salad, chicken, rice with vegetables and bread. I gave my chicken bone to the cat that hangs around the patio and he attacked it like it was his last meal. I intended to pick it up after he was done cleaning it, but couldn't find it. I know that he couldn't have eaten it, no matter where I looked I couldn't find it. I hope this doesn't come back to haunt me.


After the dinner a group of the native English speakers got together and started talking about almost everything under the sun, the Brazilians got into their group and everyone else split up between us. During this time we were introduced to an interesting pastime by the Welsh called "whiplash." Whiplash consist of relaxing all your facial muscles and then shaking your head back and forth as fast as possible, while everyone takes pictures of you. It's not as stupid or as easy as it seams. I say this, because I was told that I was particularly good at it. Here are some of the examples. I encourage everyone to at least give this a try, it's a pretty good party game.




A final grand finale of 3 whiplash attempts,



After everyone was done with the whiplash game, our conversations went to what other languages we each spoke. The Welsh actually spoke Welsh and gave us quick lesson.


By this time it was getting late and it was time for us to get ready to go watch the fireworks. Besides, the patio was going to be closed down for the night at 12:00, something that had the Brazilians very worked up about. The Brazilians had a tradition where they would BBQ their meat over a slow flame for hours, leaving the meat to roast while they went out to watch the fireworks. When the fireworks were done, they would come back and have a meal and continue to party through the night. There had been a miscommunication between the staff of the hostel and the day staff said the patio would be open for the entire night, the night staff decided that it wouldn't. This resulted in a number of angry Brazilians and a lot of meat that needed to be eaten quickly. The Brazilians had been planning to share the meal with everyone, but now they really needed everyone to eat the meat before it went to waste. Brazilian BBQ is just hunks of meat that are rolled in salt, LOTS of salt, and slow roasted, then served with bread. It's not easy to eat that much salted meat, I think I'm still trying to hydrate myself. With the amount of sun the Brazilians get, and the amount of salt they eat, it's surprising they aren't mummified by the age of 30.


Here is a picture of some of the hostel folks with the Brazilian flag, which they seemed to carry with them everywhere they went.



After everyone ate all the meat they could, a group of about 20 of us went out into the streets to watch the fireworks. I ended up talking with a Dutch lady who had been traveling the world for about two years now and found that she would be visiting some of the Brazilians she had met at the hostel when she went down to São Paulo. I also found out that one of the ladies at the hostel is a famous Brazilian Opera singer and that we had been listening to one of her CD's during part of dinner. Everyone had been wondering why the music was dragging so much.

The entire down town had been blocked off to traffic and it seemed like the entire city had turned out for the fireworks. I mean, there were hundreds of thousands of people out.


As the countdown got closer the tension built and finally the fireworks went off. They were launched from a huge radio tower in the center of town. The radio tower is similar to the Space Needle in Seattle, it's that big. The following fireworks display went on for over 20 min and was one the the most amazing and biggest that I had ever seen.


After the fireworks display was over all the English speakers gathered together, crossed hands and sang Auld Lang Syne together, at least we tried, but I don't think anyone really knew the lyrics, except maybe the Welsh. (On further research, I don't think anyone knew the lyrics, it seems to be Scottish and we had neglected to bring any Scots along.)Despite that fact, None of the Chileans know what we were saying, the Brazilians were chanting some Futbol chants, waving their flag and yelling intermittently Vive Chile or Vive Brazil.
As the streets cleared out and most of the families went home, we went off in search of a concert that was being given in the area. The opera singer loudly declared that "she knew Espanol! Follow me!" With this, we all went off in a group in search of the concert. Somehow along the way we had picked up another Australian and a Swiss guy from the hostel who claimed that he spoke four languages, was a drummer for a grunge band and worshiped the Foo Fighters. Why he told us this, I don't know, but Steven sure seemed to be having a good time.
Although our Brazilian singer seemed to know Spanish, it didn't mean that she new where the heck she was going. What she did seem to know was how to accost every stranger she came across and ask them where the concert was. After getting blank looks form about 8 people, she struck pay-dirt on the 9th and an older gentleman, his son and some other lady who I think just wanted to come along with a large group, agreed to show us to the concert.


With the Brazilian Flag waving as a battle standard, we went out into the night in search of the fabled concert that no one had any true confirmation was even happening, but it was ok we were assure, the Brazilian opera singer knew Espanol!
We finally did find the band and everyone had a great time, thousands of people danced in the streets to greet the Año Nuevo. At 2:00am the band closed down and we started our way back to the hostel. From the looks of the street the street crews would have hard next day with all the confetti, bottles and trash that lined the Avenue. From the look of some of the celebrators, it looked like it would be a hard next day for them as well.
Many of the other people left the streets in search for clubs or other forms of entertainment, but I knew that if I was going to catch my ride tomorrow the the Australians I would have to call it a night.
Crawling into bet at 3:00am, setting my alarm for 4:45 and wishing I didn't have to meet a cab at 5:00.
When I drove away in the cab at 5:00 I could still hear the music playing in the buildings that we passed and I knew that this was going to be one hard New Years to beat.
I hope that all of you had a great New Years celebration, and more importantly I hope that we all have a great New Year.